God Did It

Since the Rapture didn’t happen on May 21st as it was supposed to, a lot of people’s plans got messed up. The decision to tell your mother in law what you really thought of her turns out now to have been ill-advised. All those porn sites you signed up for, thinking you wouldn’t have to pay, are now on your credit statement. And of course all the repenting you got on with. Total waste. The world tottered on as it always does, no almighty in sight.

God’s an interesting subject, whether you believe or not, and it’s hardly surprising that we’ve seen the divine presented, interpreted, discussed, reflected upon, reviled, worshipped, and even made playable in various artistic media throughout history. God him(her)self, meanwhile, remains decidedly mum.

While I generally restrict myself to inventive holiday announcements, alerts that I’ve broken the site, or unbearably lengthy video game criticism, today’s subject is television. I do watch it. And I recently took the time to watch the new Battlestar Galactica again, all the way through.

Let me put myself in a very small minority: those who loved the ending of Battlestar Galactica. I loved it the first time I saw it a year or whatever ago and I loved it again this time. This minority, though, is so tiny that so far as I can tell, it includes… me. Oh! And my brother Marcus.

I think that’s it.

Opponents of the club include pretty much everyone else, from esteemed fellow Tapper Jay Dobry to famous authors, screen critics, Alliance of Awesome fellow Harbour Master, many coworkers, people on the street, crazed Sci Fi Channel forumgoers: basically everyone else who watched the show. These people, many of them fine fellows and fellowettes, range in their opposition to its conclusatory revelations from mild dislike to burning hatred. Literally burning. I’d borrowed the DVDs from a friend a while back and Dobry picked one up, said, “what’s this?” looked at the cover, realized what it was, made a shuddery bleah sound, and dropped it as though it had burned him. Then he shouted at me.

Spoilers ahead.

Why People Who Don’t Like it Don’t Like It

After five seasons, it turns out that God did it. I think I can say that without directly spoiling any specifics, but there might be spoilers later on, so read at your own risk. People saw it as a foolish deus ex machina, a lazy ending to a show that had otherwise been intelligently structured and full of rich social commentary. To their view the revelation that God did it cheapens everything else.

Why Those Individuals are Entitled to Their Opinions, but Nonetheless Incorrect in this Case

It’s true that God did it, but the closing episodes weren’t the first time that idea had been bandied about. In fact, if you go through the whole show you’ll see dozens of indications to that effect. I don’t dispute that “God did it,” I dispute the suggestion that it was a last-minute narrative hack, that it was unplanned, or that it wasn’t strongly supported by the rest of the story. In fact I think it was the whole point.

Battlestar Galactica was about the relationship between the Creator and the Created, and how the latter evolves to the point where it has the capability to become a Creator itself, resulting in a cyclical pattern. In Battlestar Galactica, humans were fashioned by some sort of superior consciousness which happens to dislike being referred to as God, but is nonetheless so superior as to be divine and unknowable. Humanity, in turn, evolves to the point where it can create its own life, and does so in the form of the Cylons. Like errant teens they rebel, creating their own culture and society. Once again this new form of live evolves, and eventually the Cylons have the capability to create new life… which of course they do.

The pattern is self-replicating but also destructive: the Creator is attacked and annihilated by the Created, who in turn are attacked and annihilated by their creations, and so on. The cycle resets over and over, a fact that’s stated outright many times during the show: “this has all happened before, and it will all happen again.”

Which is a curse, not an uplifting reflection on the elegance of the cosmos. That it’s happened before means that creation wrought destruction; that it will happen again means the cycle of creation and destruction hasn’t been broken and will perforce repeat.

I would have disliked the ending if, out of the blue, God had turned up and starting smiting, or changed established constants in the story, reducing to irrelevance the actions and sacrifices of all the non-omnipotent other characters. But that’s not what happens at all. The characters simply come to realize that they and their decisions exist within a larger pattern which is not easily recognized or understood. They’re not locked in to any fate; their free will does have the capacity to break the cycle, it’s just very difficult to do so. But time after time they’re to keep trying. And while the whole picture isn’t revealed until the final episodes, there is ample evidence throughout the run of the series that this is what its creators had in mind.

The Tower of Babel myth bears some similarities to Battlestar Galactica, but is not entirely parallel. Humans built the Tower of Babel as a way of reaching God, out of a desire to be on the same level, and God didn’t like that. Wrecking the Tower was a way of putting people in their place. The “God” of Battlestar Galactica, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to mind that humans have become godlike themselves, creating life where before there had been nothing. God doesn’t cause the Cylons to rebel and God isn’t responsible for the near-destruction of both races. They do that to themselves.

God in BSG is one of two things. It could be an actual divine entity whose existence transcends all others, meaning that no matter what, nothing else could ever aspire to it; or it could be an intelligence that did break the cycle, presumably after going through it a bazillion times just like the humans and Cylons have.

And while Battlestar Galactica’s God does influence events to some degree, none of it is sufficient to affect the outcome of the show. The characters remain free to act on or ignore the little nudges that God gives, and it’s up to them whether they restart the cycle or break free of it. So that’s not really a deus ex machina type of event at all. There’s plenty of evidence throughout the show that God’s involved, but as an influence rather than an imperative force. This manifests itself in all kinds of ways.

From the beginning, Gaius Baltar interacts with someone that no one else can. This imaginary friend never explains itself and over four seasons he goes through a litany of potential explanations – lunacy, tumor, implanted device, actualized guilt, everyone else really can see her and they’re just fucking with him, drugs, head trauma. The least likely possibility turns out to be true: it’s an angel. As angels go it could be a little more explicit in its advice, sure; it might have chosen a more approachable form; but it’s an angel. From God, sent as guidance. Whether he follows the guidance or not is up to him.

Another character, meanwhile, reappears in perfect health after apparently getting killed in a way you don’t really come back from. Everyone can see her, but after some initial suspicion they just sort of accept that she somehow managed to evade death and find a way back to the group. Evidence that she really did die and that whatever she is now has nothing to do with what she used to be troubles her, but she remains driven to complete some sort of task, to fulfill some sort of role. She doesn’t know what it is. Still, when the moment comes, she does exactly as God intended her to do. And then, her work finished, she’s recalled, turning out to be yet another divine agent who – for convenience – took the form of someone who had died, because she needed the trust and cooperation of others around her.

A lot of this sort of thing peppers the narrative of Battlestar Galactica, so in my opinion it’s reaching to claim that the writers just slapped God into the finale and called it a day. I get the sense that it was the story they always wanted to tell, and it’s more that people don’t like that story than that they can find any actual fault with it. As for me, I liked its symmetry, and I admired the amount of foresight and planning that appears to have gone into its crafting.

And then She Woke Up

People don’t like deus ex machina because it’s bad narrative. Emotionally, it cheapens the investment made by the consumer, an investment undertaken in good faith. If I read a novel, I’m tacitly indicating that I apply a certain value to the act and to the content; I am giving my time and attention to something I believe will be worth it. If it’s not I get upset, and if it’s really shittily not – like saying everything was a dream or whatever – that makes people grind their teeth like little else. But the presence or influence of something omnipotent in a narrative doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a deus ex. That’s the mistake people make when they look at Battlestar Galactica.

It is a trickier subject in games. Interactivity means player has an even greater stake in directing the outcome, so they’re likely to be even more pissed off if that affordance is taken from them. But it can be really satisfying when properly implemented – for example, the end of Half-Life 2. For the last ten minutes or so you’ve got a weapon so powerful nothing can threaten you. And for those ten minutes you revel in your unstoppable killing machine-ness. It’s a treat. Overdone, it would have ruined the game.

Games, like space opera television, are a good avenue for literary discussion of the divine. I admire Battlestar Galactica because of what I perceived as ample foreshadowing and a fresh, interesting perspective on the relationship between people and God. If it didn’t do it for you, it didn’t do it for you… but if you’re on the fence, go back and give the show another shot. You might change your mind.

About the author

Tap-Repeatedly Overlord Steerpike is a games industry journalist and consultant. His earliest memories are of video games, and hopes his last memories will be of them as well. He’s a featured monthly columnist with the International Game Developers Association, and is internationally published in an assortment of dull e-Learning texts and less dull gaming publications. He also lectures on games at various universities.

18 Responses to God Did It

Damn you, Steerpike! Now I feel compelled to go watch the entire series.

Sorcha06/02/2011

This is a great column, Matt. I love the way you present the philosophical underpinnings of BG.

It seems similar to the ending in Lost, but it didn’t work there because the theme wasn’t consistently presented throughout and the ending seemed tacked on.

BG’s ending is more in keeping with ‘The Sopranos’, where the bleak fadeout was there all along.

Love your writing.

Ajax1906/02/2011

I didn’t like the ending of “Half-Life 2.”

It was super fun to mess around with the mega-grav gun and toss those dudes around like rag dolls, especially after all the indignities you suffer at their hands in the game’s opening moments, but, overall, I found the ending of “Half-Life 2″ to be very underwhelming.

As for BSG, sadly, I think, at this point, I am not sure if I will ever finish it. I am still mired somewhere in Season 3 and, despite a few really great episodes here and there, it never really “clicked” with me enough to keep watching. And everything I have heard about the ending pretty much confirms that I wont likely enjoy it any more.

Based on the first 2.5 seasons of the show that I watched, and it’s been a while now since I watched, the idea that there are angels running around is just too far a disconnect from the show I thought I was watching. BSG shined when it was a gritty sci-fi story about humanity’s struggle to survive against a powerful, deadly relentless force. No show or movie has ever done space tactics better than BSG. Sure, the religious stuff was always there in the background and brought to the foreground from time to time, but I always saw it as some faith vs. science type of allegorical argument, not the very basis of the show. I would be more than happy to have the show explore faith and religion, but once you start having actual angels and God manipulating things it takes things to an entirely different level. I am fine with that sort of thing in a show, like “True Blood”, where it’s all about super natural forces and the like, but not so much in my gritty sci-fi space opera.

My brain is in shreds right now, interviewing on Skype for 2 hours, but I’m going to give this a shot anyway. At 11:30pm.

Television SF rarely lives in a world of cast-iron rules. It’s said that SF’s bending of reality is what makes it interesting – that anything can happen – but it can rob stories of consequence and tension. Did Barbara die last week? Not to worry, a time travel paradox, a cloning process or plain old resurrection will bring her back next week. Job done. Literary SF doesn’t follow this trend nearly as much. Making up fancy shit as you go along is not plot, it’s circus.

SPOILER SHITTY

I mean

SPOILER CITY

It was with surprise that BSG grounded itself so strongly in the real. The Pegasus crew turns up and slowly, but surely, things gravitate towards a showdown. They don’t have teleporters, mind rays or anything like that. This is a story about people, about personalities – the pieces are all in front of you and how they play out is damn exciting.

But slowly, drip fucking drip, we get the usual SF tropes turning up. Ancient scriptures that are turning out to be true predictions of the future. Visions. Hybrid baby blood that cures cancer. People hearing mystical music in their heads. Mysterious power drains that no one can explain. Resurrection. Cryptic words with hidden meanings… when you hear “she will lead the human race to its end” you just know they’re going to jerk you around with that later.

I had great theories about the role of Six in the first series – when Baltar ‘correctly’ picked out the target site in episode “The Hand of God” I thought the Cylons had blown the place up deliberately for some Unknown Cylon Plan reason – I didn’t think it WAS ACTUALLY THE HAND OF GOD.

Mrs. HM and I didn’t care much for the plot in the end. It was obvious it would end well but likely the solution would be pulled out of thin air. Still, we loved the sucker punch arrival at Earth mid-final season.

We were also heartened when the last-minute “peace plan” went to shite due to the small matter of a murder that everyone had forgotten, but then… then you’ve got a small rock knocking a ship knocking a dead person’s hand onto a nuke launching button which is facing the bad guy’s base! And a crazy song turns out to be actual star coordinates but the only one who could work that out is someone who died and came back to life yet didn’t know why! MR. GOD, IT WOULD BE EASIER JUST TO STICK A MAP TO DRADIS NEXT TIME WITH A SIGN SAYING “GO HERE” OR MAYBE “GO HERE, PLEASE”

Baltar and Tigh were my favourite characters who were mercilessly skewered in the fourth season. I just didn’t believe the Baltar cult. And Tigh’s little fling just didn’t ring true at all. We’d had two point five seasons of plot seemingly emerging from character, and then we had characters smashed about by plot. Even worse, it was a plot that could only be explained by a divine being! That switch, character for incomprehensible plot, was unforgivable.

We didn’t join BSG for its destiny storyline, which was in about every single fucking show by this point after Lost had done a great job turning that sort of mumbo-jumbo into something compelling and human. We joined BSG for its commitment to people in an apocalyptic setting. “33” is still one of the best pieces of SF drama out there.

You see it wasn’t the deus ex machina that killed it – that was just the final poke in the eye demonstrating what had gone awry with a series we had come to love.

I watched the show in its entirety (sp) about 5 months ago, and I liked the ending. I was forewarned by others that the ending might not be up to scratch, and so I was pretty open to it.

I think BSG handled the whole thing really well. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that God did it – a lot of the mysticism of the Old Gods was true throughout the show too… so I thought of it more as a guiding force rather than, say, the Christian God.

I think that the ‘angel’ Gaius refered to the Gods (plural), and the ‘angel’ Six always refered to a singular God. Many of the visions came through seers or prophets, and the texts that lead them on their way were holy scriptures devoted to the Gods, plural.

So I think it is somewhat of an injustice to simply state that ‘God did it’ per se, as opposed to less ill-defined yet somewhat broader concepts of Fate, Destiny, and Karma.

Ernest06/02/2011

Fascinating commentary SP. I stopped watching the show at some point in either the last year or the next-to-last year because it started to seem too stupid. Not so much that it was self-referential, but that characters accepted stuff that just seemed insane to me. Kind of like how I felt toward the end of X-Files, when it became obvious that the story had become too much for its writers.

Anyway, I appreciated your thoughts on the series. Thanks!

Max "xtal" Boone06/03/2011

I’m in line with your thoughts, Jarrod.

I had the advantage of watching BSG mostly in one go on DVD (I began in summer 2008 and by autumn was up to season 4 part 1, watching the final run as it aired) and in all honestly I enjoyed every single episode of it except for one (the boxing episode).

Long before it aired I knew that A) the ending would be largely dissed and B) that I would probably enjoy and be fine with it. Obviously when the show started it was very grounded and could be considered ‘hard’ sci-fi. Gradually it let in more room for wispy mysteries and religious hokeyness but that didn’t diminish it for me.

As much as I loved the season one rational atheist version of Baltar I still enjoyed his character as he transformed into a fanatic/prophet. I was never hoping to have my own views reaffirmed by Ron Moore … ‘ok, phew! he doesn’t believe in that god nonsense!’ …

What can I say? I just really let my mind go and try to enjoy fictional television, flaws and all. The ending definitely was not made up; there were hints through the final two seasons, and if by the time Starbuck miraculously re-appeared you hadn’t accepted that there were supernatural forces at work then you were clinging to denial and hoping for the hard sci-fi of, for example, ’33’ which I agree was a totally awesome episode and introduction.

I just learned to love both sides of it. And there’s no comparison at all to the X-Files. For at least five years that show was not only off-the-rails retarded but it was poorly written, directed and acted.

The final 4 or 5 episodes of BSG produced some of the finest acting of Olmos’, Hogan’s, and especially McDonnell’s careers.

Mike "Scout" Gust06/03/2011

I am over in Ernest’s camp on the ending, I guess. I sort of blanked out near the beginning of the last season and just fed my BG monkey cause I could. Olmas and McDonnell kept me coming back long after I should have stopped watching.

Max "xtal" Boone06/03/2011

You guys really aren’t too fond of it, eh? When did it start to go wrong for you? Just a genuine inquiry because it felt like it maintained such a high level of quality to me. My favourite bits of the show were the last bit of season 2 and the first bunch of episodes in 3. Really loved that run.

xtal, it was *just after* that the wheels started coming off for myself and Mrs. HM. But it was always entertaining, things well worth watching right up to the end. Particularly Sometimes A Great Notion, The Oath, Blood on the Scales.

Synonamess Botch06/05/2011

I started to lose interest around (I think) season 2, when it began turning into Days of Our Lives In Space. I like your analysis though. I did watch the ending, just out of curiosity, while my wife filled in the blanks for me.

I just wanted the summary, as I didn’t care enough about the characters to invest more time. I can’t help but compare it to Babylon 5 (rightly or no) which was, in my humble opinion, superior (spotty acting notwithstanding).

Both of those series open the door for all manner of interesting philosophical and religious discussions.

The characters were well written and acted masterfully. Adama and Tigh were awesome – both broken men in very different ways. Xtal mentioned Baltar – there were times when I’d just see him and start cracking up, wondering what mess he was going to bury himself in. How can someone appear so scared for so long, and still remain interesting and engaging? They did such a great job casting his role.
Most of the characters had depth, thanks to the range the actors could perform. I thought BSG was great sci-fi/space opera, and for me is the yardstick of what I look for in sci-fi tv series.
Between BSG and Lost, the benchmark has been set pretty darned high lately.

Tony2Toes06/08/2011

Just read your elegant defense of the ending for BSG. Interesting perspective, Dr. Sakey, however in spite of your brilliant essay, I still do not like the ending….guess, #1, there is no accounting for taste and #2, logic and reason do not always carry the day. That said, I must admit God certainly has some hot angels around to do his dirty work. One could kick your ass, but at least do it cleanly and honestly; the other, uses her wiles in ways I would never expect of an angel. They appear to be juxtaposed messengers, if indeed they are messengers.

By the way, you avoid the seamy side of the equation. Who were the devil’s handmaidens? Certainly he had some.